More McHenry County Blog

At least six months out need to be an activist in some high profile activity.

A) For example, Erik Dubiel took on condemnation in Lake Zurich.

Demonstrated on Saturdays

Attended village board meetings

Gathered petition signatures for an advisory referendum

Ran a write-in candidacy for village board

Eric is well-positioned to run for village board in a year and a half, if keeps up the visibility

B) For example, Jim Thompson of Crystal Lake may be leafleting as we meet against Tax Increment Financing Districts (TIFs, for short).

Jim loves to go door-to-door. The weekend before the Tuesday public hearing, he started with a generic piece. He distributed about 900. On the day of the hearing, I redesigned the handout so his name was on the bottom. He went to 500 more doors.

Spoke at the TIF hearing in opposition. Used theoretical arguments. (I spoke about how the TIFs would raise my taxes.)

After the meeting was over, I re-worked the pamphlet and put “Citizens Against TIFs, Jim Thompson, Chairman” on top. That’s what I hope he is handing out right now.

If Jim wants to run for city council in a year and a half, he will have an issue against at least the incumbents who run for re-election, who vote for the TIFs.

C) For example, Larry Snow, Huntley School Board member. Larry figured out that the school officials weren’t telling the truth about the district’s financial condition. He wrote an 18-page analysis and mailed it out to 5,000 households. He sent an 8-page second piece to more opposing the referendum as well. He wrote letters as often as the local paper would print them. With Sun City residents voting solidly in opposition, the tax hike referendum barely passed. Snow ran for the school board and won. There are regular letters to the editor praising Snow. Now that his judgment has been vindicated, he is starting a political action committee, going door-to-door asking for $10 contributions. He proposed refunding some of the district’s bonds saved each of the homeowners $500 a year.

He is in a good position to run for higher office.

D) For example, Chris Jenner is now a member of Cary Grade School district. He was an active opponent of tax rate increase referendum that followed a teachers’ strike and a raise most of us would consider excessive. He wrote a lot of letters to the editor. Then, he teamed up with three other candidates with strong support networks. They campaigned together, sharing flyers, yard signs and newspaper ads.

F) And, I can’t ignore Scott Bludorn, who ran the best third-party campaign for state representative that I have seen. He first ran for the Buffalo Grove City Council, using issues like condemnation as a way to catch people’s attention.

So, before anything else, you need to have someone with enough courage to run for office.

NEXT, YOU NEED ISSUES TO GO WITH THE CANDIDATE

People not only have to know who you are—well before the election campaign begins—but you need some issues. NOT TOO MANY ISSUES.

Columnist George Will, writing about the New Jersey gubernatorial campaign, said that two issues are enough. I have usually had three I concentrate on.

I know. You have so much to say that limiting yourself to two or three issues won’t allow you to say what you want (or should I say “have”) to say.

It all depends on whether you want to have a chance of winning or not.

You can give a lecture or you can run a campaign.

People do not pay attention to campaigns. That is why repetition is so essential. At one campaign school I attended, I was told that one needs to make 7-8 impressions on a voter to have a chance to get their vote. If you don’t keep repeating your issues (maybe, from different directions), how do you think you are going to get your chosen issues into people’s heads?

I’m not saying you can’t use gimmicks to obtain some of the impressions. Merchandising a bobble-head doll, as I wanted to do in our campaign for governor would have made Associated Press and helped with name ID, but it would have tended to make the campaign look less serious. And I was discussing the issues seriously.

Your issues should relate to the office you are running for—more or less. I say—more or less—because when I first ran for McHenry County Treasurer in 1966, I campaigned against the Personal Property Tax. I was not running for the legislature, of course, but the County Treasurer did collect the hated Personal Property Tax. By the time I left office the legislature and the voters had passed a constitutional amendment to abolish the tax on individuals.

An anti-tax issue is a way to get through to men. If you were running for school board, you could make opposition to a tax hike or bond referendum the capstone of your campaign.

Or you could put an advisory question on the ballot and use it to piggyback on.

It doesn’t work as well with women, who tend to like issues that affect their children. Good luck in figuring out how to handle the fairer sex without promising to spend money.

THIRDLY, YOU NEED RESOURCES

I’m talking money here.

There is some minimum that you need in order to be taken more or less seriously. When I ran for Governor, we spent over $200,000. I knew we had created a “real” campaign when I hear the Sun-Times political reporter comment to that effect on WTTW’s Chicago Tonight. I think the radio ads on WGN, WLS and mostly WBBM convinced the reporters that were convinced that we had a real campaign. Starting them in August helped create that effect.

For state representative, you’d probably need $50,000.

For local office, where manpower can talk the place of money, you need money to print brochures and the ability to deliver them.

If fund raising were my forte, I could give you advice here. Since it isn’t, I can only tell you that, if you don’t ask for money, you won’t get it. YOU NEED TO ASK.

SUMMARY

There are three elements to any successful campaign: Money, a candidate and issues.

Different campaigns will start with a different element.

1) There can be an interest that will provide the money, if a candidate and issues can be developed.
2) There can be a candidate wanting to run for office (“lusting” to run would be best) who can put together the money and figure out what issues will work.
3) Or there can be an issue just waiting for a candidate who can find enough money to exploit it to gain public office.

OK, LET’S SAY YOU HAVE A CANDIDATE, SOME ISSUES AND SOME IDEA OF HOW TO GET ENOUGH MONEY

WHAT ABOUT THE CAMPAIGN?

Besides starting early--well before petition collection time—the best advice I can give is that there must be a CAMPAIGN MANAGER. The candidate cannot be his or her own campaign manager. The time I tried to do that I lost. One just cannot be a good candidate, plus a good campaign manager.

The candidate needs someone as dedicated to the campaign as the candidate. It can certainly be a volunteer. In fact, a volunteer probably will be more committed to the campaign’s success than a paid staffer.

A campaign manager can be trained at campaign management schools. This past year, the United Republican Fund ran such one-day schools in every part of Illinois. Anyone could attend who could pay the admittance price. The Leadership Institute out of the D.C. area conducted them. The Institute conducts longer, more extensive schools in Washington for both candidates and prospective campaign managers. Campaigns and Elections, a magazine also puts on campaign management schools, sometimes in Chicago.

There are others—just type campaign management school in Google.

The Campaign Manager needs to develop a CAMPAIGN PLAN. A campaign course will teach one how to prepare one, but the basic rule of thumb is to start with election day and work backwards. Remember that people are now able to vote three weeks before election day. That means the message needs to get out earlier. (It also gives still another advantage to incumbents.)

Still, the primary goal of the campaign manager is to IDENTIFY BY NAME ENOUGH VOTERS TO WIN THE ELECTION.

Funny thing about campaign managers. They often turn out to be candidates the next time around.

Someone has to be in charge of getting the necessary MONEY. The candidate is the best solicitor, although I haven’t met many who like to do the asking. My suggestion is that the candidate and campaign manager get together some people who will assist, remembering that the candidate may have to make all the calls, but that everyone else can be helpful setting the calls or meetings up. Most successful candidates spend more time raising money than doing anything else. Remember, this refers to most “SUCCESSFUL” candidates.

You also need someone willing to keep records for the State Board of Elections. When they say that a contribution of $500 or more has to be reported within two days, they mean it.

With VOLUNTEERS, again, the candidate is the best recruiter. At all times, the candidate should carry volunteer cards. At minimum, get those who are friendly to sign that they will vote for you.

Managing volunteers is very difficult. I am a failure at it. They need a lot of “high touch.” If you have a good campaign manager, he (or better yet, she) can probably do a lot of that for the candidate.

If you are short on money, you need to have enough volunteers to cover every household on the last weekend. If you really want to win, you need to have enough people to be able to cover all of the households the Monday before the election, just in case a “hit piece” arrives on the Saturday before the election.

I am referring to volunteers as mainly a MEANS TO DELIVER ONE’S MESSAGE.

There are obviously other—MORE EXPENSIVE METHODS.

These include direct mail and telephone calls. A man in Libertyville who helped Scott suggests making phone calls to answering machines only, leaving a maximum of a 15 second message. He has given tax districts absolute fits in referendums.

MEDIA

By media, I mean free media. I mean Left Stream Media.

If you are depending on the media to deliver your message, you will lose.

You’ll be lucky to get three articles:

1) One for your announcement
2) One in answer to a newspaper’s questionnaire and
3) A third one briefly describing the race right before the election.
4) Oh, yes. If you aren’t offensive, you might be an editorial endorsement.

If you are the spokesman for a referendum, you might manage a few more mentions in the newspaper. If there are candidates’ night, you might get a quote for each one.

Of course, letters to the editor are free, so have your supporters send as many as your campaign can generate. You might even want to have a letters to the editor coordinator to help generate them.

Then, there is PAID MEDIA. Most people call that advertising.

Unless one can get a guarantee that a political ad will be put where you want it, I think newspaper ads are a waste of money.

Radio ads can penetrate a market, if you have enough of them. With radio ads, candidates get the cheapest rate for the previous 90 days, I think. But stations may and do limit who, that is, candidates for what office, can advertise on their stations. I remember that in Effingham, the main station was charging car dealers about $3 a minute. A candidate figuring that out might spend a lot on radio ads.

Such ads must be imaginative and varied, however. I think my Chickenman parodies on how neither Ryan nor Blagojevich would debate me fit that bill. So did the one run in the Chicago market in favor of allowing people to protect themselves with guns.

HOW THE CANDIDATE SHOULD LOOK

The basic rule of thumb is the candidate should look normal. And I mean normal to a senior citizen. That voting bloc has the largest turnout, of course. When I first ran, I was 23 and seniors supported me. Maybe they thought of me as their grandson.

HOW THE CANDIDATE SHOULD SPEND TIME

Time is a precious, wasting resource.

Getting money comes first, as boring that sounds. If you don’t have enough, you can’t have an effective campaign.

After that is taken care of each day, the candidate needs to expose him/herself to the public. Door-to-door is a standard, but be sure to leave a leaflet with a personal message. (“Sorry I missed you,” signed with the candidate’s first name.) Seniors have lunchtime meals and other activities. Be bold. If you take time to ask permission, the answer will probably be “No.” If you don’t, you might hit half of them before getting kicked out.

If you distribute at supermarkets, do it as people are leaving the store. That will give you more time before a manager says you can’t do it. In short, BE BOLD. Better to apologize and have had the chance to distribute some literature than to ask and be told, “No,” and get nothing into the hands of prospective voters.

When there is as little daylight as there is now, the campaign manager has to get creative in scheduling the candidate’s nighttime activities. Bowling alleys are a natural. They can be hit for each different league time. Bars and bingo games work, too. (When you are asked to buy drinks, be ready with an answer. In 1966, mine was, “What do you think I’m running for, sheriff?”) Train stations are hard to work at night, but with enough volunteers—one for each car—you can get a lot of literature out. Think of places people congregate at night. Look for dinners in churches, veteran’s homes, etc.

ELECTION DAY

If the campaign manager has done the job, on election day, there will be a list of people who have promised (indicated) they will vote for the candidate. Most candidates pretty much ignore election day activities. Those candidates, more often than not, lose.

It is a difficult task to accomplish, but one can literally identify enough votes to get elected. Once identified, they need to be gotten to the polls. Calls first, to the point of being obnoxious, and visits in person offering to drive the person to the polls or baby-sit while they go to the polls.

In Lake in the Hills, for instance, there are 28,000 residents. The current village president got re-elected with 1400 votes.

Tell me that anyone could not have beaten him, if they had run a voter identification program.

Are there any questions?

= = = =

Let me add that CAMPAIGNS SHOULD HAVE A WEB SITE AND A CAMPAIGN BLOG.

To return to McHenry County Blog, click here.